"Opportunity cost" of going to a library?
What was that saying about knowing the price of everything and the value of nothing?

On the other hand, Sal did say he'd rather spend that time playing golf.
Which is fair enough, if you like golf, and suggests a knowledge of value too.

Opportunity cost, insomuch as it applies at all, applies to both library visits and playing golf though, so it's not really an valid argument.

Where have I given the impression you can give yourself a pay rise? And you have the nerve to question my comprehension.
There we go again, Sal's real world where only Sal works in the private sector. I do not work in the public sector.
Yes and generally you resort to ridiculous arguments and silly examples whilst attempting to portray yourself as the only hard-pressed, private sector, "wealth creator" in the room compared to all us other inefficient, communist public sector workers.
You have some bare-faced cheek I'll give you that. The subject of the polls is a great example. I made no opinion on Thatcher, merely ridiculing the use of ridiculous polls used in a ridiculous manner. You for some reason decided I needed to produce some kind of evidence for a point I hadn't made. Anyone with an ounce of intelligence could see those polls were irrelevant as statistics to the point ajw was trying to make and his continued reliance on them merely further damaged his argument. I notice you didn't answer the question at the time on that thread as to what evidence for what point was I supposed to produce. But then that would make you wrong wouldn't it? And we all know what you do when you're found out to be wrong, you disappear off the thread, like you did with the minimum wage carers with their expense accounts.

Does it now? So why did you compare it to the monetary cost of buying off play?
Why did you put a monetary value on your free time? And even talking about non-monetary value, why did you suggest that half an hour in a library somehow stops you playing hours of golf with your son? Unless you are suggesting that you really, honestly do not have 30minutes free, ever.
I last went to my library about a month ago, I go roughly 6-8 times a year, whenever I've run out of books to read and there isn't an obvious new one to buy. Not quite sure why its relevant but there we are.
You've just proved it perfectly. You admit you can afford the time. So there is little/no opportunity cost even in non-monetary terms which wasn't the original argument anyway (what was it you called it? A typical RLFans swerve?) you have that time free. The fact you choose not to does not mean there is a high opportunity cost attached to it. I choose not to go running 3 nights a week, it would be of value to me to do so, the fact I choose not to doesnt mean that there is a high opportunity cost on that, it means I can't be [ia[/irsed. Choice is not the same as opportunity cost.

Aye. 'Appen.

The thing is, he was also responding to a point about libraries in general being closed. And he responds to it simply with an 'I don't use one'.

It does not appear to have entered his head that the point was not about whether he (or any other individual poster here) uses their local library, but about libraries in general.

He seem incapable of thinking outside of his own personal life and experience (which ties in the constant 'read world' guff): it doesn't seem to have actually occurred to him that anyone else might use a library: the elderly, for instance, children (I know of specific stories about children whose parents are utterly uninterested in books, but where a child has broken out of that, and for whom the library becomes a vital resource: librarians tend to say that such children come from 'Argos homes', because that's the only 'book' in the house). He either completely forgets or ignores or simply has no clue as to why anyone else would use a library and, therefore, why libraries are such valuable resources.

And perhaps that's the most telling thing of all.

It does make you wonder what Sal may think of those individuals who, for whatever reason, have no internet connection at home or work and have to take advantage of that resource in their local library. Maybe they could use their library's internet to order some books from Play.com or Amazon?

Or perhaps that's where they can apply for jobs, since so many vacancies now demand online applications only?

The more cynical answer would be that they should aspire themselves into better jobs (because those are all widely available) and therefore be able to buy a computer, be online and purchase all their own books and anything else.

I did a piece on a specific library last year: perhaps some really don't realise how libraries are such vital community resources, doing far more than lending books (as if that were not important enough). Elderly people who spend time in their library, reading the paper, being able to talk to people – their only break from being at home alone. The child whose parents have no books at home. The young mother who is (possibly) suffering post-natal depression and finds that being able to bring her baby to a playgroup at the library is a really useful break.

El Barbudo mentioned people knowing the cost of everything and the value of nothing: it really is quite depressing.

North Korea has nothing on this country. You can be banned for carrying the tools of your trade if you are an artist and, it seems, arrested for not smiling and looking like you are enjoying an event: www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... -race.html It's no wonder the Olympic Park is so joyful.

North Korea has nothing on this country. You can be banned for carrying the tools of your trade if you are an artist and, it seems, arrested for not smiling and looking like you are enjoying an event: www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... -race.html It's no wonder the Olympic Park is so joyful.

Mind you, it's come to summat when the Dally Wail start blagging their stories from the pages of Private Eye

Methadone?

And so it continues

So the ones to pay for a management balls-up will once more be the poor sods at the bottom of the pile. Don't forget, these buggers are still to be involved in the operational activities of three police forces and are actively recruiting rlcivilian investigatorsrl

rlTHISrl could be the future of policing in the UK, if these buggers get any more involved